Modeling Study on the Characteristics of Laminar and Turbulent Argon Plasma Jets Impinging Normally upon a Flat Plate in Ambient Air

Modeling study is performed to compare the flow and heat transfer characteristics of laminar and turbulent argon thermal-plasma jets impinging normally upon a flat plate in ambient air. The combined-diffusion-coefficient method and the turbulence-enhanced combined-diffusion-coefficient method are employed to treat the diffusion of argon in the argon-air mixture for the laminar and the turbulent cases, respectively. Modeling results presented include the flow, temperature and argon concentration fields, the air mass flow-rates entrained into the impinging plasma jets, and the distributions of the heat flux density on the plate surface. It is found that the formation of a radial wall jet on the plate surface appreciably enhances the mass flow rate of the ambient air entrained into the laminar or turbulent plasma impinging-jet. When the plate standoff distance is comparatively small, there exists a significant difference between the laminar and turbulent plasma impinging-jets in their flow fields due to the occurrence of a large closed recirculation vortex in the turbulent plasma impinging-jet, and no appreciable difference is found between the two types of jets in their maximum values and distributions of the heat flux density at the plate surface. At larger plate standoff distances, the effect of the plate on the jet flow fields only appears in the region near the plate, and the axial decaying-rates of the plasma temperature, axial velocity and argon mass fraction along the axis of the laminar plasma impinging-jet become appreciably less than their turbulent counterparts.

Modeling Study on the Entrainment of Ambient Air into Subsonic Laminar and Turbulent Argon Plasma Jets

Modeling study is performed to reveal the special features of the entrainment of ambient air into subsonic laminar and turbulent argon plasma jets. Two different types of jet flows are considered, i.e., the argon plasma jet is impinging normally upon a flat substrate located in atmospheric air surroundings or is freely issuing into the ambient air. It is found that the existence of the substrate not only changes the plasma temperature, velocity and species concentration distributions in the near-substrate region, but also significantly enhances the mass flow rate of the ambient air entrained into the jet due to the additional contribution to the gas entrainment of the wall jet formed along the substrate surface. The fraction of the additional entrainment of the wall jet in the total entrained-air flow rate is especially high for the laminar impinging plasma jet and for the case with shorter substrate standoff distances. Similarly to the case of cold-gas free jets, the maximum mass flow-rate of ambient gas entrained into the turbulent impinging or free plasma jet is approximately directly proportional to the mass flow rate at the jet inlet. The maximum mass flow-rate of ambient gas entrained into the laminar impinging plasma jet slightly increases with increasing jet-inlet velocity but decreases with increasing jet-inlet temperature.

Modeling Study of Shrouding Gas Effects on a Laminar Argon Plasma Jet Impinging Upon a Flat Substrate in Air Surroundings

With the laminar plasma materials processing as the research background, modeling study is conducted concerning the effects of argon shroud on the characteristics of the laminar argon plasma jet impinging normally upon a flat substrate located in air surroundings. It is shown that adding shrouding gas is an effective method to reduce and control the entrainment of ambient air into the laminar plasma jet. The shrouding gas flow rate or velocity, the injection slot width and the stand-off distance of the substrate appreciably affect the air contents in the plasma near the substrate surface.

A new method of modeling cladding band structure of air-guiding photonic crystal fibers

Cladding band structure of air-guiding photonic crystal fibers with high air-filling fraction is calculated in terms of fiber shape variation. The fundamental photonic band gap dependence on structure parameters, air-filling fraction and spacing, is also investigated. The numerical results show that the band gap edges shift toward longer wavelength as the air-filling fraction is increased, whereas the relative band gap width increases linearly. For a fixed air-filling fraction, the band gap edges with respect to spacing keep constant. With this method, the simulation results agree well with the reported data. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Three-Dimensional Modeling of Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow in Laminar-Plasma Material Re-Melting Processing

Modeling study is performed concerning the heat transfer and fluid flow for a laminar argon plasma jet impinging normally upon a flat workpiece exposed to the ambient air. The diffusion of the air into the plasma jet is handled by using the combined-diffusion-coefficient approach. The heat flux density and jet shear stress distributions at the workpiece surface obtained from the plasma jet modeling are then used to study the re-melting process of a carbon steel workpiece. Besides the heat conduction within the workpiece, the effects of the plasma-jet inlet parameters (temperature and velocity), workpiece moving speed, Marangoni convection, natural convection etc. on the re-melting process are considered. The modeling results demonstrate that the shapes and sizes of the molten pool in the workpiece are influenced appreciably by the plasma-jet inlet parameters, workpiece moving speed and Marangoni convection. The jet shear stress manifests its effect at higher plasma-jet inlet velocities, while the natural convection effect can be ignored. The modeling results of the molten pool sizes agree reasonably with available experimental data.

Effects of Natural Convection on the Characteristics of a Long Laminar Argon Plasma Jet Issuing Horizontally into Ambient Air

Three-dimensional modeling results show that the appearance of the long laminar plasma jet is less influenced by natural convection even as it is issuing into ambient air horizontally. However, plasma parameter distributions may deviate from axi-symmetry

Characterizing Particle Dispersion by Image Analysis in ICFB

A new particle image technique was developed to analyze the dispersion of tracer particles in an internally circulating fluidized bed (ICFB). The movement course and the concentration distribution of tracer particles in the bed were imaged and the degree of inhomogeneity of tracer particles was analyzed. The lateral and axial dispersion coefficients of particles were calculated for various zones in ICFB. Results indicate that the lateral diffusion coefficient in the fluidized bed with uneven air distribution is significantly higher than that in uniform bubbling beds with even air distribution. The dispersion coefficients are different along bed length and height.

Turbulent Modeling of ABL over Wavy Water Surface

A new model accounting for both turbulence and sea state effects has been proposed in this paper to describe momentum, heat and moisture exchanges through air-sea interface. While long wave components mainly change air flow profile, short wave components

Effects Of Subgrid-Scale Modeling On Lagrangian Statistics In Large-Eddy Simulation

The application of large-eddy simulation (LES) to turbulent transport processes requires accurate prediction of the Lagrangian statistics of flow fields. However, in most existing SGS models, no explicit consideration is given to Lagrangian statistics. In this paper, we focus on the effects of SGS modeling on Lagrangian statistics in LES ranging from statistics determining single-particle dispersion to those of pair dispersion and multiparticle dispersion. Lagrangian statistics in homogeneous isotropic turbulence are extracted from direct numerical simulation (DNS) and the LES with a spectral eddy-viscosity model. For the case of longtime single-particle dispersion, it is shown that, compared to DNS, LES overpredicts the time scale of the Lagrangian velocity correlation but underpredicts the Lagrangian velocity fluctuation. These two effects tend to cancel one another leading to an accurate prediction of the longtime turbulent dispersion coefficient. Unlike the single-particle dispersion, LES tends to underestimate significantly the rate of relative dispersion of particle pairs and multiple-particles, when initial separation distances are less than the minimum resolved scale due to the lack of subgrid fluctuations. The overprediction of LES on the time scale of the Lagrangian velocity correlation is further confirmed by a theoretical analysis using a turbulence closure theory.

Effects Of The Length Of A Cylindrical Solid Shield On The Entrainment Of Ambient Air Into Turbulent And Laminar Impinging Argon Plasma Jets

When materials processing is conducted in air surroundings by use of an impinging plasma jet, the ambient air will be entrained into the materials processing region, resulting in unfavorable oxidation of the feedstock metal particles injected into the plasma jet and of metallic substrate material. Using a cylindrical solid shield may avoid the air entrainment if the shield length is suitably selected and this approach has the merit that expensive vacuum chamber and its pumping system are not needed. Modeling study is thus conducted to reveal how the length of the cylindrical solid shield affects the ambient air entrainment when materials processing (spraying, remelting, hardening, etc.) is conducted by use of a turbulent or laminar argon plasma jet impinging normally upon a flat substrate in atmospheric air. It is shown that the mass flow rate of the ambient air entrained into the impinging plasma jet cannot be appreciably reduced unless the cylindrical shield is long enough. In order to completely avoid the air entrainment, the gap between the downstream-end section of the cylindrical solid shield and the substrate surface must be carefully selected, and the suitable size of the gap for the turbulent plasma jet is appreciably larger than that for the laminar one. The overheating of the solid shield or the substrate could become a problem for the turbulent case, and thus additional cooling measure may be needed when the entrainment of ambient air into the turbulent impinging plasma jet is to be completely avoided.

Numerical modeling of 3-D turbulent two-phase flow and coal combustion in a pulverized-coal combustor

In the present paper, a multifluid model of two-phase flows with pulverized-coal combustion, based on a continuum-trajectory model with reacting particle phase, is developed and employed to simulate the 3-D turbulent two-phase hows and combustion in a new type of pulverized-coal combustor with one primary-air jet placed along the wall of the combustor. The results show that: (1) this continuum-trajectory model with reacting particle phase can be used in practical engineering to qualitatively predict the flame stability, concentrations of gas species, possibilities of slag formation and soot deposition, etc.; (2) large recirculation zones can be created in the combustor, which is favorable to the ignition and flame stabilization.

Characteristics of Laminar and Turbulent Argon Plasma Jets Impinging Normally Upon a Workpiece in Ambient Air

Modeling results are presented concerning the characteristicsoflaminar and turbulentargonplasmajetsimpingingnormally upon a flat plate (workpiece) in ambient air. It is found that the presence of the flat plate significantly enhances the entrainment rate of ambient air into the jets and affects on the flow and temperature fields in the near-plate region of the jets. At comparatively large distances between the plate and the jet inlet, the axial gradients of the plasma parameters in the laminarplasmaimpinging-jets assume values much less than those in the turbulentplasmaimpinging-jets.

Spectral evolution of angularly resolved third-order harmonic generation by infrared femtosecond laser-pulse filamentation in air

We experimentally investigate the evolution of an angularly resolved spectrum of third harmonic generated by infrared femtosecond laser pulse filamentation in air. We show that at low pump intensity, phase matching between the fundamental and third-harmonic waves dominates the nonlinear optical effect and induces a ring structure of the third-harmonic beam, whereas at high pump intensity, the dispersion properties of air begin to affect the angular spectrum, leading to the formation of a nonlinear X wave at third harmonic.